Tuesday, November 25, 2003
I dren you not, the first thing Spooky said to me this morning was, "What do you want." And she said it in a voice not unlike Oscar the Grouch. Well, one part Oscar and one part Ron Perlman.
I think maybe the Samurai thing is going to her head. She played Tenchu for two and a half straight hours last night. I had to finally pry the controller from her sweaty little hands as she mumbled, "Kill. Kill! Kill!" I think maybe she's beginning to believe she's the medieval ancestor of Go Go Yubari.
Anyway...yesterday, no sooner had I rhapsodized on the fortunate cloudiness, than the sun came out and spoiled everything. I suppose that teach'll me for praising bad weather. I hid in my office all day, writing. Yes. That's what I said. Writing. Can you believe it? I did 1,362 words on the story, which is still titled "Untitled Novella." With luck, I can finish this one in three weeks. Bill Schafer read my blog entry yesterday and called to tell me there was no rush, I could take all the time I want. And I'm grateful for that, but it has to be done sometime, and it won't get any easier, and I have so much else to do. So, there you go. I have to find an artist for it, though I'd prefer to wait until I'm at least halfway through, so I have a better idea of its overall tone. Oh, and it's another first-person narrative (though I have built in an explanation of the narrative, so we know why and how the narrator is telling the story).
After dinner, I worked on Nebari.Net until midnight. I'm getting the manga page up. It will feature the ongoing adventures of Nar'eth, as drawn and scripted by Leh'agvoi. It's almost ready. I'll get the bugs out tonight, link it to the front page, and post the link here tomorrow. Spooky and I watched the last half of Caberet on TCM (a movie I never get tired of), and, afterwards, I reflected on the horrifically tragic nature of the story and the characters, on the power of that final ominous frame of film, the reflection of the Nazi brownshirts. Genius.
Sunday was the second anniversary of this blog and it didn't even occur to me until yesterday.
I know I shouldn't do this, that it's a snarky thing to do, but I'm about to do it anyway. A few days back, I stumbled across a review of Low Red Moon at Greenmanreview.com, which the website praised as an especially well-written piece, an example of how a review should be written. So I read it. And it is fairly well-written, and extremely positive (which is why what I'm about to do is so snarky). Still, I have to take issue on two points.
First, the reviewer writes, "Reading Low Red Moon, I did actually feel like I was in a sticky-hot southern city in the midst of summertime..." Now, this would be all well and good were the author reviewing Threshold, which is, in fact, set in August. Low Red Moon, however, is set in October, and climaxes on Halloween. This is not a subtlety of the story. It's right out there in the open. Indeed, in the second sentence of the first paragraph of Chapter One, I wrote "Deacon doesn't answer the cop, stares instead out the coffee shop at the autumn-bleached sky above Third Avenue." (p. 7, italics added). On page 14, as Deacon exits the coffee shop, we see the marquee of the Alabama Theatre across the street, which reads, "The Phantom of the Opera - Lon Chaney - October 27." The book is repleat with jack-o'lanterns and references to the month and the season and to Halloween. Indeed, it is an important plot point. All of which leaves me rather mystified as to how the author could have read the entire book, cover to cover, and then written of it, "I did actually feel like I was in a sticky-hot southern city in the midst of summertime..."
Secondly, the author of the review writes, "About the only fault I would name with the book is that things at the end aren't really explained all that well; I know what happened, but I was a bit foggy as to why." This is disquieting for two reasons. On the one hand, on a strictly narrative level, I think it's perfectly clear why the events of the story occur. We know the motivations of all the characters; I can go right to the relevant passages. We know why the ghuls are doing what they're doing, why Deacon's in hot water, why Chance's child is Narcissa's prize, and so forth. Then, on the other hand, the constant reader knows where I stand on the issue of ultimate explanation and fiction dealing with the paranormal. Here I shall defer to the Gentleman from Providence, who wrote, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown." (from "Supernatural Horror in Literature" 1925-27). The all important word here is "unknown." Lovecraft understood that the moment the unknown becomes known, it loses much of its power over us. Thus, I believe that when writing a weird tale (such as Low Red Moon), that it is the duty of the writer to leave the unknown just that, unknown. I may not be the most objective of judges, but it seems to me that the novel's storyline is perfectly clear. However, that the novel ends with unanswered questions, relating to the ways of the ghouls, the reality and temporal location of the child in Chance's visions, the nature of the yellow house on Benefit Street and Mother Hydra, etc. & etc., is entirely intentional. To be precise, that unknownness, that lack of shedding light on the why, is the point of the thing.
Other than these two problems, it is an excellent review and I do thank the author for it and hope he or she will forgive me for taking issue with these two points.
I wanted to include an e-mail, but I have gone on, haven't I? Frell. I'm going to inclide it, anyway. Don't read it if you don't wish to:
It's funny that you dislike exactly what I like about the cold days. The sky turns a pale shade of gray so that it almost looks like a regular sky, except there's no sun and the shadows turn all uniform and washed out.
I grew up in the bleak northlands of Michigan, where winter runs from October through April and there is no fall or spring, but I went to college in New Jersey. I roomed with a guy from Atlanta. One night in Feb we were walking to the local all night deli for whatever, he in nine coats, me in a thin leather jacket, and I looked up and and sniffed and said "It smells like it's going to snow." He looked at me with a weird look and said, "What do you mean? Snow doesn't smell." And this girl walking behind us from Vermont said to me, "You're right, it does smell like snow." It snowed a few hours later unexpectedly, just a dusting. I can't describe the smell, but the northlanders know what it is. It's very faint and very distinctive.
Random notes of local flavor: Growing up, I had a door in the exterior wall of my second floor bedroom that didn't go anywhere. Many houses had doors like that. It's in case the first floor of the house gets snowed in, you can still escape. We average 24 feet of snow a year.
Happy winter.
Jeff
I guess I'm supposed to say "thank you." Rather, I feel I should suggest that all that cold is having a negative affect on your judgement and advise you move, as soon as possible, to Key West, where it never, ever snows 24 feet (shudder). Now, shut up, Caitlin, and write.
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